OUR Grassroots agenda?

[Tamyrlin79]

Okay, Kerry wins Nov. 2. So far we've all been focused on getting Bush out. Kerry must deal with Bush's mistakes. However, I feel that WE must deal with the country's future, and once Kerry wins we must begin planning what OUR priorities, as a people and as a party, are.

What are WE going to begin doing to promote OUR agenda in the Kerry administration and in Congress? We, the grassroots of the party, are a force to be reckoned with, as we have demonstrated in this election, and our elected leaders avoid listening to our issues at their peril: We are not blind loyalists. We are Democrats.

Someone posted that Nov. 2 is the starting line. I agree. While Kerry structures his administration, we should be making a conscious effort to lay out our own plans.

I would say that my list of priorities are:

1. Defending Kerry and his admin's legitimacy from any onslaught of the Right.
2. Supporting investigations into the past four years beginning Jan. 20.
3. Media reform: Fairness Doctrine, break up Big Media.
4. Supporting efforts to re-engage with the Rest of the World and fight terrorism.
5. Repealing the yucky parts of the Patriot Act.
6. Energy reform/Environmental protection
7. Election reform (voting rights, voting machines)
8. Campaign finance reform
9. Immigration/border security
10. Trade balance, amending trade agreements
11. Start rebuilding the wall between church & state
12. Advocate for amending the constitution to ban states from disenfranchisement of felons after their sentences have been served.
13. ...
????

Thoughts?

[welshTerrier2]

1. very important issues you raised ... thanks ...

the silence on posts like this is often deafening here on DU ... i expect things will change for the better after the election-mania subsides ...

we need to understand that we are not just in a campaign; we're in a movement ... and to be effective, we must have a plan and a direction ... ABB has energized democrats in a remarkable way ... i am truly fearful, even distressed, that our great anti-bush energies will fail to make the transition back to the hum-drum world of grinding out a platform and working hard to achieve it ...

for me, the number one issue is to find a way to reach voters ... we need to reinstill in them a sense that paying attention to the truth and acting on in the interests of the country, not just themselves is a critical ingredient to maintaining a free society ...

i don't know whether a Kerry administration will challenge the right-wing stranglehold on our mass media ... but even if they are initially unsuccessful legislatively, and they will be if we don't win back the House or the Senate, I would like to see Kerry sit down every single night and pick apart the bullshit that is peddled by the right-wing propaganda machine ... perhaps he could do an "act" every night with John Stewart ...

other critical priorities will be putting Americans back to work and being a real deficit hawk ... as a nation, we stand on the brink of an economic tragedy ... we can no longer blindly rely on the ebb and flow of the business cycle to bail us out ... it's a different world out there and someone needs to put some heavy "think time" on the needs of American workers ...

as for all the items you cited in the base post, i'm right there with you ... without grassroots involvement of all who are not sleeping, we're in for a very dark future ...

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I am with you there, esp on media and

election reform. The sooner we can get decent andidates in office, the sooner we will get decent policies.

http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[welshTerrier2]

3. a typo chuckle

you know, i read (misread) your very short post just a little too quickly ...

i thought you wrote: the sooner we get decent antidotes in office ...

works for me ... lay a little of that anti-venom on me, will ya?

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Kerry will be a good antidote to the poison of the * junta. I hope :)

I am still leery that we will get death by a thousand cuts instead of a slash across the throat, though. :(

[welshTerrier2]

5. i still hold out hope ... but not much ...

it's going to be fascinating to see what happens to all the ABB energy that exists right now ... i see an economy teetering on the brink of collapse ... i see a mass media that has forgotten its role as the fourth estate ... i see workers being squashed ...

picking away at the margins of defense policy, quibbling over the "right minimum wage", making a few minor corrections to the tax code and generally not understanding the need for substantial change will quickly lead to a failed presidency ... so i hold out some hope that even thought democrats have RUN to the center, perhaps it will be clear that they need to GOVERN to the left ...

it's time to start giving a damn about workers ... it's job one as far as i'm concerned ... and it's time for democrats to stop worrying so much about being portrayed as weak on defense ... our military spending and bloated weapons systems are way out of control ... you'd think we were still fighting the cold war ... and perhaps most importantly, it's time to stick it to corporations that have an un-American agenda ... those that seek to limit their liability in the courts, those that seek to trash the environment, those that would deprive the sick of their medications ... to hell with all of them ...

we're in a war here ... so far, it's been mostly the ultra-right that realizes that fact ... we like to complain but we do very little organizing and very little fighting ...

[mandyky]

6. Work on efforts to take back the House of Reps

Join a group like DFA or Wellstone's organization.

Work on local and state level government.

[Ardee]

7. Large task

Considering that it is rather likely that Bush will ,again, steal the election this may be a moot point.

Should Kerry actually win the thing then Progressives are faced with the task of opening a door that the DLC has closed on Progressive ideas and ideologies. If Kerry wins then the swing to the right is endorsed as successful and if Kerry loses then its all Nader's fault. They have the game rigged you see......